Olivier, where the hell are you?

I know: I have been uncharacteristically silent these last few days, but don’t worry, everything is fine. Angry social media rock stars didn’t break into my house in the middle of the night to beat me up. (Some may have been too busy tearing up the Blog World Expo in Vegas anyway.) Truth is that I am completely swamped, trying to finish up the super top secret book project before my otherwise wonderful editor develops an ulcer or sends a couple of goons to “help things along.”

Here’s where things stand: You know how some musicians lock themselves up in a studio for weeks to work on an album? For the last week, I have spent the better part of 16 hours per day chained to my desk, in quasi-darkness, fueled by cans of Java Monster, sardines, granola and stinky French cheese, slaving to edit a hefty portion of the chapters I have already submitted to my publisher. Needless to say: Not a rock star. You know how I know this?

1. In spite of the electric and acoustic guitars lining one of my walls, my office is not technically a recording studio.

2. Chico is not a certified sound engineer.

3. I see no band, groupies, whiskey or cigarettes of any kind.

4. I am not actually… you know… making music.

But let me say this: Writing and editing might not seem like a lot of work, but my brain’s coolant has to be replaced every six hours. That’s how hard my little neurons are having to work. Balancing chapter continuity in my head while I jump from one to another in random order and struggle to unstitch every sentence before reattaching it just right is a lot like playing ten simultaneous chess games while debating the superiority of French football with an Italian without ever raising your voice, I kid you not. Oh, and my beard is growing so fast because of all this nonsense that I look a lot like this (minus the cool blue-blockers, the designer hoodie, and that brightness thing the rest of you know as ‘sunlight’):

All of this to say that I may not have time to write a lot of elaborate blog posts this week. So if seem a little absent, don’t worry, I’m here, just not here.

Also on the schedule this week though: Emerging from the batcave to unleash some fierce knowledge at Kennesaw State University’s Social Media Integration conference in Atlanta, GA (Oct 22 and 23). Also presenting: Pepsi’s Shiv Singh, Hubspot’s Rick Burns, Whole Foods Market’s Marla Erwin, and more. I will be conducting a boot-camp on Friday and an R.O.I. tutorial on Saturday, perhaps even in full beard. I haven’t decided yet. (I can’t remember if the Unabomber was ever caught by Georgia State Police, so I may not opt to take my chances walking around looking like that.)

It was as if a super-colliding particle accelerator had been secretly built beneath the streets of Greenville. Everything wrong had come together just right. Local media reported the foul stench of spoiled energy drinks mixed with sardines and stinky French cheese moments before being accelerated at the speed of light into the hereafter. A test pattern feebly attempted to hide the black hole forming near the 200 block of North Main Street.

And then, fusion. A nebula of thoughts, ideas, and experience drawn together with such force as to fuse the very atoms forming synaptic superhighways into a single mass. There was a blinding flash of light and, as we squinted to look our final moments in the face, we made out the shape of a bearded brandbuilder, emerging disheveled from his lab. He was glowing, and smelled of coffee, sardines, and stinky French cheese…

Hi Oliver! Such wit! Admirable. I should probably work on being a musician and writer at the same time. (Rockstar would probably be pushing it too much!)

Glad you’re back in circulation. Although, I have to agree with you that sometimes, we do need to recharge and take things slow so we can come back with a bang and be energized to start things going again.